The Atlantic Coast Conference extended its northern reach, adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Now the question becomes, will the league stop there – or keep growing to 16?

The ACC announced today that its council of presidents unanimously voted to accept Pittsburgh and Syracuse, a move that increases its membership to 14 and sends the Big East scrambling – again – to replace two of its cornerstone programs.

The announcement caps a turbulent week of reshuffling for the ACC. It likely will lead to another dramatic shift in college athletics and could mark the next step toward the era of 16-team superconferences.

Texas A&M already announced its intention to join the Southeastern Conference, leaving the future of the Big 12 in doubt. And the board of regents at Oklahoma and Texas are meeting Monday to discuss the possibility of the universities leaving that conference.

Commissioner John Swofford said the expansion “geographically bridges our footprint between Maryland and Massachusetts.”

The invitations came after Pittsburgh and Syracuse submitted letters of application to join the league, the ACC said. It is unclear when the move will take effect. The Big East’s exit fee is $5 million, and schools wanting to leave must provide 27 months’ notice.

“We are pleased that Syracuse adds a New York City dimension to the ACC, a region in which we have built strong identity and affinity, and we look forward to bringing ACC games to the Big Apple,” Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor said in a release. “Overall, for Syracuse, this opportunity provides long-term conference stability in what is an uncertain, evolving, and rapidly shifting national landscape.”

Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said the school’s leadership “could not envision a better conference home for Pitt.”

Saying the league was excited about adding to its “northern tier,” Florida State President Eric Barron confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday that the ACC had received the application letters from Pitt and Syracuse.

He said 11 of 12 league presidents attended a meeting in Greensboro, N.C., last Tuesday, with the other participating by phone. During the meeting, they unanimously approved raising the exit fee to $20 million – up from $12 million to $14 million – for any member leaving the conference, a maneuver seemingly designed to keep the remaining ACC schools in the fold.

The latest moves are sure to create even more bad blood between two conferences that became embroiled in a nasty lawsuit the last time the ACC expanded by adding schools from the Big East. A multibillion dollar settlement reached in 2005 included the scheduling of nine interconference football games.

Pitt and Syracuse bring the number of programs making the Big East-to-ACC jump in the past decade to five, and Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich said the most recent moves were “kind of a shock to everybody.”

Syracuse was one of the original targets of a previous round of expansion by the ACC along with Miami and Boston College in 2003. The ACC ultimately added the Hurricanes and Virginia Tech for the 2004 season and brought in BC for the following season as its 12th member.